Little Green Footballs

Thursday, July 14, 2005

So much for George W. Bush and his hard line on terror. Seems the US so bogged down in Iraq is open to 'discussions' with selected elements of the Iraqi insurgency. Can you imagine the uproar on LGF if their British, Australian or Italian allies in Iraq negotiated with these people?

The new U.S. ambassador to Iraq has denounced an insurgent attack that killed at least 27 people, many of them children. But the ambassador says the United States is open to having discussions with some selected elements of the Iraqi insurgency.

Incoming U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad condemned the insurgent attack, blaming it on "foreign terrorists" who use children for what he labeled "cannon fodder."

"That is yet another indication of the kind of people these terrorists are," he said. "They use children, as well as they target children."

One U.S. soldier was among the more than two dozen people, most of them Iraqi children, who were killed by a suicide car bomber in Baghdad. The bomb was detonated as a group of U.S. soldiers was handing out chocolate to children.

But Mr. Khalilzad, who is about to take up his post, said the United States is willing to talk to some elements of the Iraqi insurgency, so long as they are not foreign terrorists or what he called "hardcore Baathists" of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.

"So we want to isolate those [elements]. But Iraqis who have an interest in a successful Iraq, who would like to live in a situation where minority rights are protected, where Iraq can work for Iraqis. So, yeah, we're willing, in cooperation with the Iraqi government and others, to talk to them," he said.